


Revelations

by Cat_Moon



Series: Half Breed [1]
Category: Moonlight (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-28
Updated: 2013-08-28
Packaged: 2017-12-24 23:21:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/945886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cat_Moon/pseuds/Cat_Moon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vampire comes to Mick with a job -- protect his daughter.  When it's revealed that his daughter is Beth Turner, life for them all changes forever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revelations

**Author's Note:**

> This universe was started during the airing of the series, around the time of "The Ringer." It goes on it's merry way from there. There are currently over 30 stories in the Half Breed universe. They will be posted as time permits. 
> 
> This story if the first in the "Half Breed" Universe of stories. It's a good idea to read them in order. One follows from the other in what happens; they aren't stand-alone stories and you may not understand what's going on if you read out of order.

_You’d think I would have learned to expect the unexpected, being a PI all these decades. Then again, the first thing they teach you in Dick: 101 is that the simplest explanation is usually the right one. You know, KISS. Occam’s razor. Even if my life never exactly adhered to the rules, like everyone else I’m programmed to look at clues in a certain, logical, predictable way. It usually served me well._

Until one rainy autumn day, when those preconceived notions were shot all to hell. Forevermore.

 

XXX

 

 _Prologue_ :

 

When the phone rang, the man recognized the number immediately even though it had been years since he’d seen it. His gut tightened; this call would not be good news. He quickly picked up. “Yeah.”

“It’s me.”

“What is it?”

“You need to get your hairy butt back here ASAP. The shit is about to hit the fan, my friend.”

There would be no further explanation; this wasn’t something one discussed over the phone. It was spoken of in person only in hushed tones, with furtive glances around. He knew why his friend had called, only one reason. “I’m leaving now; I’ll be there as soon as I can. Thanks, J.”

XXX

His service had made the appointment, a potential client needing help. While he waited for the man to arrive, Mick found himself wishing he would have gotten somebody else’s name out of the phone book. Anyone else’s. Normally he felt _some_   anticipation at a pending case, but today he just wanted to wallow in his morosity. Or so Josef had accused him the last time they’d spoken. He had accused his friend in return of making up the word. “Yeah, just for you,” Josef had replied. “A combination of morose and moron.” Josef was refreshingly emotionally detached in most circumstances and Mick admired him for that – though he’d never admit it to his friend. But he wasn’t Josef, and he’d been having a  _really_ bad time of it lately. Ever since he saw her face – Coraline. No, Morgan. There was no way she was Coraline, they’d established that. He was just going crazy, that’s all. Finally losing his thin grasp on reality. Or maybe he’d lost that the night he’d been turned. So it wasn’t Coraline and he could feel relieved that it was over.

Maybe a case would take his mind off things. As he let his visitor in, he felt his curiosity perking up a bit after all. The man was middle age, maybe early 40s. He was solidly built, with a hint of gray in his hair that made him look both distinguished and boyish at the same time, and blue eyes that were vaguely familiar and sparkled with life. Which was striking.

Because the man was also a vampire.

“Hey,” he began, extending his hand. “I’m Mick St. John.”

“Aldo Tillerman.” They shook and Mick motioned the man to take a seat by the desk.

As they sat, Mick cocked his head at his visitor. “Do I know you?” Not that all vampires knew each other, hardly. But there was something about this man that had his senses tingling. Not in a bad way necessarily, just…something.

“No, I’ve lived out of the country for the past twenty years, I’ve just returned. You come with a good reputation.”

“Best vampire detective on the West Coast,” he quipped.

“The only, I would imagine. You must be a man of unique… talents.”

“Maybe. What can I do for you, Aldo?”

“I need you to protect my daughter.” He took a photo out of his coat and slid it across the desk. And that’s when Mick’s little corner of the universe imploded. Little did he know it was to be only the first of the explosions to rock his world.

The photo was current, taken less than a year ago. And it was _Beth_.

Mick rarely lost his cool, but this situation warranted an exception. His eyes darted between the photograph and Aldo several times. “That’s…she’s…you’re…”

“My name used to be Aldo Turner.”

Cold. His bones were chilled, with a heady mix of premonition and confusion. And a strong overwhelming urge to [i]protect[/i]. It heated the chill away and fired up his blood. “I think you’d better start explaining,” he demanded.

Aldo nodded to the bottle of liquor on the table. The one Beth had given him for saving her life, the second time. “Do you imbibe? If so, you may want to pour yourself some.”

Acknowledging the truth of that, Mick poured a glass, trying not to notice his hands shook just slightly. He motioned to the bottle hospitably. Aldo shook his head, declining. It was an acquired taste for a vamp, not all of them liked it. He enjoyed the burn. It reminded him of being human.

“So you’re Beth’s father.” He knew her father had supposedly died in a plane crash, about six months before… before. “You know I’m going to check you out, and you’d better be telling me the truth, because if you aren’t, I’m going to slice off your head first and ask questions later.”

Aldo nodded, seeming to be satisfied with the threat. “What do you sense?” He held out his palm.

Mick mirrored the action, his hand hovering just over the other man’s. The flash hit him like a ton of bricks and he reeled back.

_...the man and woman locked in passionate embrace. The love so powerful, they could no longer deny themselves or each other. Sweet surrender. “You’re my first,” the young blond woman whispered. It wasn’t about feeding; he was her first lover. “Your only,” he growled, swinging her up easily into his arms and starting for the stairs._

The man was the same one sitting before him, with not even a minor change in looks.

“What the hell!” What his vampire sense was telling him had to be wrong -- wasn’t possible. Again he doubted his sanity.

“Have you ever heard the stories about,” Aldo’s voice lowered and he glanced reflexively into the shadows of the office, “half breeds?”

“NO!” Mick surprised both himself and Aldo with the shout. “No, that’s just crazy fairy tales. It doesn’t – it can't happen. Just a legend.”

Aldo shook his head. “Probably most of the ‘facts’ bandied about are vampire urban legends, but most legends do have a ring of truth in them. It’s incredibly rare. Most vampires no nothing of it. The ones who do… we guard this secret as carefully as the one of our own existence. “It’s very dangerous to be a half breed.”

“Stop using that word!” for some reason Mick felt the word cut him like a harsh epithet. A curse.

“You think I don’t care?” Aldo shouted back. “I love her. She’s my daughter. She’s part of me.”

“Then why’d you leave? Were the hell were you? Do you know what almost happened to her?!”

“I do now.” He motioned to the bottle. “I think I’ll have some of that after all.”

“Help yourself,” Mick said, not bothering to be a host.

He did, and refilled Mick’s glass as well. That didn’t bode well.

“You have to understand,” he turned shrewd eyes on Mick. “I think you do. I was trying to protect both of them. I was a vampire in love with a human. We… it was like magic from the moment we first laid eyes on each other. I tried to resist, but in the end I… just wanted to be happy. To be with the other half of my soul.“

Mick felt his half-formed hopes and dreams being shattered against the steep cliff he was plunging over. “What does it mean, exactly?” he said, feeling numb.

“She’s human, Mick. Alive. She will grow old and die if she isn’t turned. I can’t say I’m sure of all the facts myself, it’s not like I’m an expert. I just had a little girl, a miracle.”

“And left her,” Mick reminded cruelly.

“I thought she would be safer! By my being in their lives I would attract too much of the wrong kind of attention.

 _Stay to protect her or leave to protect her._  Wasn’t that the same war Mick had been fighting for awhile now? So what was the right thing to do?

“I didn’t find out until much later that… that vampires can ‘sense’ a half breed, and are particularly attracted to them even though they don’t know why. That’s a recipe for all sorts of trouble, you know how undisciplined some of our kind can be.”

Made perfect sense of why Beth somehow kept getting caught up in cases involving them. _Vampire magnet._ And why he was so attracted to her and her to him? He was surprised at the sorrow the idea invoked. Was it nothing more than a case of vampire chemistry?

“Thank you,” Aldo said unexpectedly. When Mick looked over at him questioningly, he continued. “For being here for her. Taking care of her.”

Mick’s lips tightened into a thin line. “Or putting her in the line of fire?”

“If anybody’s guilty of that, it’s me.“

“Yes you are.” But could Mick say he wouldn’t have done the same thing in Aldo’s place? It wasn’t his fault his human wife had gotten pregnant – that wasn’t supposed to be physically possible. And what do you do then? Abortion? The thought of Beth, his beautiful, special Beth not existing in the world was another shard of glass in his gut. Should someone be condemned for not being able to kill their unborn child?  _Stay or leave._   It came back to that. Aldo had left, and Mick admired the man’s strength to walk away. Mick hadn’t been able to, even when he believed it to be for the best.

And here they were.

“You need to hear the rest of it, Mick. That’s why Coraline chose Beth. Because she was part vampire.”

And here Mick had thought his surprises done for the day. But with the name of his ex-wife, all the pieces _finally_   fell into place. Everything now made sense – the whole damn past twenty five years, complete with all the coincidences and connections. Now he understood.

“And that’s why your wife came to me for help finding her.”

Aldo nodded. “She knew you’d be able to. But I don’t think she knew a vampire had Beth. I don’t know, I was gone by then.”

“You never came back again at all?”

“Not till now. When I heard some disturbing things about my daughter’s abductor sniffing around again.”

Okay, so the shocks just kept coming. Maybe he’d get used to them eventually. “Coraline isn’t dead.”

“I believe you knew that.”

“No,” Mick shook his head. “I just thought I was crazy.” He looked up again sharply. “She’s human. I know, I didn’t _smell_ vampire.”

“I may not have all the details of what’s going on, but I’m certain she’s a vampire. There’s no magic pill to undo it.”

“How do you know?” Mick challenged. After all the bizarre things he’d heard today, he felt gave him carte blanche to believe in the possibility.

“More likely she’s found a way to disguise her scent somehow, to give the appearance of human to her kind. That’s a skill a lot of vampires would kill to possess. But to be honest, Mick, I really don’t _care_ at this point. Because if doesn’t matter whether she’s a vampire or not – if she’s hanging around Beth she’s not up to any good. “

“What the hell _is_ she up to,” Mick mused aloud.

“That’s what I’m hiring you to find out.”

“You don’t have to hire me.”

“I know. I came because you needed to know the truth about everything.”

“Sometimes…” Mick glanced away then back again. “We need to know the truth but it isn’t something we want to know.”

“Life’s a hard road when you live forever.”

Mike sat straight up in his chair as if he’d been electrocuted. “What if there is a “cure”. What if –“

“Don’t’ say it!” Aldo commanded. They both stared at each other with equal, horrified expressions.

Once the thoughts started coming, he couldn’t take them back no matter how much he wished to. “What if Coraline was – was trying to ‘undo’ her mistake. To make amends to me by reversing it?” It made a sick kind of sense. He’d never been able to forgive her for turning him, and their marriage had effectively ended the night it began.

“Maybe she got it into her crazy head that Beth was some kind of miracle cure,” Aldo acknowledged reluctantly. “There are a _lot_ of crazy rumors out there about HB’s. But I don’t believe that.”

“What matters is what Coraline believes.”

_Or maybe she’s already found a cure, and needs more…donors._

“You know her very well; does she seem like a vampire that wants to be human again? Most don’t.”

“I wouldn’t have thought so before. Now… I don’t know if I know anything.”

Then sat in silence for awhile, each man trying to process the difficult meeting they’d just had. Finally Aldo leaned rose. “Well, I should get going. I’ll be in touch.”

“Wait a minute,” Mick stopped him. “Are you going to… see her?”

“You mean in person, talk to her?”

Mick nodded. “She’s your daughter, and she needs to know the truth. You should go see her.“ He paused. “She knows about us. Our kind.”

“I know. I did my homework before I came here. So I know you’ll tell her.”

Mick started to protest but Aldo stopped him with a raised hand. “Maybe later, when—if she’s ready to see me. I’ll stay close. This time.”

“Okay,” Mick accepted.

Aldo stopped at the door and turned. “Mick, I’m glad you’ve been here to protect Beth all these years. I _approve_."

_You do? Because I don’t know if I do._

“Just like any father, I want my girl to be happy. To have someone who loves her and will cherish her.” Mick shook his head, denial on his lips. Aldo grabbed his upper arms tightly. “Don’t you see? You are the only man in this whole world who can do that!” he said fiercely. “You’re the only one I’d trust her with. You can’t desert her.”

“I would never desert her,” Mick whispered the truth he finally admitted to himself.

“She needs you.”

“I need her.” This was so much like meeting the future father-in-law it was laughable, if a high pitched hysterical, they’re-coming-to-take-me-away laugh qualified.

“If you need to hear this – it’s not the vamp/HB attraction that you’re responding to.”

“How do you know?” Hope, born again. Tenacious little sucker. Hah, no pun intended. Cracking up seemed like a viable option after all. This was way TMI, even for a normally controlled vampire to handle in one, rainy day.

“I’ve seen the way you two look at each other.” Mick stared at him helplessly. “And I see the look in your eyes right now. I recognize it – because it’s the same way I used to look at my wife. You won’t make the same mistake I did.”

Permission? Could it be true? It was [i]right [/i]they were meant to be together? Just two people (albeit 2 unusual people) in love? Right, not a curse? In a move that was so unlike him it stunned him anew, he impulsively hugged Aldo. Yep. Definitely time for the cracker farm. Well, really, it was to be expected. How much could one vampire take??

Absolution? Priest confessor? Maybe that’s what they were to each other, Aldo and Mick. Two sides of the same coin. Both loving Beth and trying to protect her, each in his own way.

 _Please god, let it be true. Let it be okay. To be happy, for the first time._   Praying to a God he didn’t believe in anymore didn’t seem any stranger than anything else he’d heard today. He wasn’t sure he’d ever be truly surprised by anything ever again.

Of course they still had to figure out what Coraline’s game was and neutralize her. But like Beth said – they made a good team.

“You have my number, keep me informed,” Aldo said, businesslike again as he took his leave. “I’ll be here. This time.”

Mick nodded agreement. “Goodbye Aldo.”

“Hey Mick,” Aldo winked at him, eyes so much like Beth’s twinkling. “Call me dad.”

Mick stood staring at the empty hallway long after Aldo was gone. Finally, he turned and went back inside to call Beth.

Invite her over.

THE END

written on 11/10/07


End file.
